Airbus Switching Parts After Warnings on Icing

Aviation regulators have recently issued emergency safety warnings that icing-prevention devices championed by plane maker Airbus can have the opposite of their intended effect, causing key sensors on its aircraft to freeze up and triggering a potentially dangerous dive.

Focusing on parts installed on nearly 700 Airbus jets world-wide in recent months, the safety directives stress that they actually may increase ice buildup on sensors that tell automated flight-control systems about the angle of the wings relative to airflow. If multiple sensors fail at the same time, even temporarily, on-board computers may automatically push the nose of a plane sharply downward without any commands from pilots.

The directives issued on both sides of the Atlantic are highly unusual because the manufacturer initially urged airlines to put the parts on as a voluntary safety initiative. Now, Airbus has stopped installing them in the factory and is scrambling to help airlines remove the suspect parts—metal plates that support sensors called angle-of-attack indicators—as quickly as possible.